


What Julie Did On Summer Vacation

by sadlikeknives



Category: Kate Daniels - Ilona Andrews, The Iron Covenant - Ilona Andrews
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:48:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27284437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadlikeknives/pseuds/sadlikeknives
Summary: "I need you to keep your niece for the summer.""I understood all of those words individually."Kate must never know.
Relationships: Hugh d'Ambray & Julie Olsen, Hugh d'Ambray/Elara Harper
Comments: 3
Kudos: 48
Collections: Shipoween 2020 - The Halloween Ship Exchange!





	What Julie Did On Summer Vacation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anticyclone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/gifts).



Hugh was sitting at the desk in his room, doing paperwork with the door open and generally avoiding the delegation from the Pack that had arrived just a few minutes ago, when he heard footsteps racing up the stairs. He'd already stood up by the time Stoyan caromed into the doorway and said, panting, "The Medrano woman wants to see you."

"About what?" Hugh asked, already strapping on his sword and headed for the stairs.

"I assume it has something to do with the girl."

"What girl?"

"You'll see."

He found "the girl" standing in the courtyard with her pony, a little apart from the bustle of people and goods getting ready to move out with the Pack delegation returning to Atlanta and under guard from Andrea Medrano and Elara, a blonde teenager with crossed arms and a sullen expression on her face: Julie Olsen, or Julie Daniels or Lennart or whatever the hell she was going by these days. He thought there might be a hyphen. When Andrea Medrano saw him, she said, skipping right over any false pleasantries, "Oh, good. I need you to keep your niece for the summer."

Hugh blinked at her, brought up short. "I understood all of those words individually," he admitted after a moment of trying and failing to make sense of it.

Andrea gestured to the girl. "Your niece. I need you to watch her."

"Does Daniels know you're here?" he asked her, then realized he was talking to the wrong person. "Does Daniels know you're here?" he asked the girl, and then told Medrano without waiting for her reply, "I don't have a niece. I don't have a family." Elara cleared her throat, and he corrected himself, "I have a wife. Do you have a niece?" he asked Elara.

"I do not have a niece."

"There you go. I don't have a niece."

"Whatever," Medrano said. "Look, just--keep her away from Roland for the summer and it'll be fine."

"Why would I need to keep her away from Roland?"

"Because she's been hanging out with him behind Kate's back."

Hugh stared at the girl for a while. "Why the fuck would you do a stupid thing like that?"

"She thinks she's spying on him," Medrano said grimly.

"I am spying on him!" Julie Olsen-Daniels-Lennart-Whatever protested, the first thing she'd said in Hugh's presence.

"He's letting you see what he wants you to see," Hugh corrected her.

"I know that!"

She thought she knew that, he thought grimly, because she was a teenager, but she had no idea. He asked Medrano again, more forcefully, "Does Daniels know she's here?"

"Of course not. Kate still doesn't know _you're_ here, and we're hoping to keep it that way as long as possible. She thinks Julie is going to a summer camp for magically gifted teens."

"Do they still have summer camps?" Stoyan muttered under his breath. Hugh ignored him.

"You're the best option we could come up with to keep her away from Roland for a while on the fly, so." Medrano pushed the girl's shoulder, and she budged about half an inch toward Hugh. "Good luck."

"This is going to end very poorly," he told Medrano, unsure whether he was talking about Julie's stay in general or trying to keep Kate Daniels--Lennart, whatever--in the dark about it, and then he told Julie, "If you try to run away I'll let the forest eat you."

"No, you won't," she said.

No. He probably wouldn't. He turned to Elara. "It seems we have a guest."

"Your niece," Elara agreed. "I heard."

"She's not my niece."

"Yes, she is," Medrano chimed in. 

Hugh ignored her. "Well, come on, then," he told Julie. "Let's find you a room." He gestured to one of the Iron Dogs hovering to watch the show, and she came over to take the pony to the stables.

Julie, with her shorter legs and heavy pack, had to hustle to keep up with him, which was fine by him. "I know what I'm doing," she protested as they entered the tower.

"You think you know what you're doing," he corrected her, not unkindly, "because you're a teenager and you think you know everything. But if you live through the experience you're going to look back on it in about ten years and marvel at how absolutely idiotic you were." She scoffed, and probably rolled her eyes. Teenagers. "You can't _spy_ on Roland."

"Sure, I can."

"You really can't."

"He thinks he's so great that no one could, which actually makes it kind of easy. He tells me more than he means to because he thinks I'm too young to understand it."

It was a fair assessment, but, "He's still _Roland_."

"Yeah. I know."

Hugh stopped dead on the stairs and turned back to her, standing a few steps below him, slightly winded from the climb with the weight. They'd have to work on that. "Don't run away," he told her.

"Why? You're gonna let the forest eat me?"

"No," he told her. "Because if you stay, you might learn something. And then you can go home and use it." It was a pity Rene was dead. He could have told her more about how Roland could fuck someone up than anyone on the planet: he'd watched it happen to Hugh in real time. He watched the gears turn for a moment, and then he kept climbing, tossing over his shoulder, "And because your physical conditioning is terrible."

"It is not!" Julie protested, startled out of her reverie enough to scramble after him. "You just have a lot of stairs here."

"Didn't you used to live in that monstrosity with all the shapeshifters?"

"Yeah," she admitted, "but not any more."

"There you go. You need to take more stairs. It's good for you. Also, because the forest would eat your pony."

Julie gasped. "I wouldn't let Peanut get eaten!"

_Peanut_. Of course it was named something like that. "If you don't run away," he said patiently, "you won't have to worry about it." They had reached the floor he and Elara lived on; there was an empty room down the hall he was planning to stick Julie in so he could keep an eye on her. He paused on the landing to ask her, "Deal?" She didn't answer, which he'd more or less expected. Wait. "Does Lennart know you're here?"

"Are you dead yet?"

"He's not going to kill me." Julie looked skeptical. Ugh. "Your room is down here."

That perked her up. "Can I paint it?"

"The walls are stone, so...no."

"I thought uncles were supposed to be fun. You're no fun."

"You're correct. I am no fun. Also, I'm not your uncle."

"You kind of are."

Hugh gave up. It was no use arguing with a teenager. "What is it your age cohort says? Oh, yes: whatever."


End file.
